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OF 

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OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 

Professor 
Eugen  Neuhaus 


1 


FOURTH-DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 


AN  UNBORN  SPACE 

THE  COURT  OF  FOUR  SEASONS 

Frtm  an  ticking  by  Gertrude  Partingttr 


Time  is,  and  all  the  detail  of  the  world  confounds 
The  plastic  mind.     With  multitude  of  shapes  and 

sounds 

Do  the  swift  elements  of  thought  contend 
To  form  a  whole  which  life  may  comprehend. 
Only  to  those  of  high  intent 
Is  life  revealed,  and  quick  dreams  sent — 
Half  glimpsed  truths  omnipotent. 
Out  of  the  silence  of  an  unborn  space 
A  spirit  moves,  and  thought  comes  face  to  face 
With  the  immutable,  and  time  is  past, 
And  the  spent  soul,  alone,  meets  truth  at  last. 
Chance,  fate,  occasion,  circumstance, 
In  interfused  radiance 

Are  lost.     Past,  present,  future,  all  combined 
In  one  sure  instantaneous  grasp  of  mind, 
And  all  infinity  unrolls  at  our  command, 
And  beast  and  man  and  God  unite,  as  worlds  expand. 
— Ormeida  Curtis  Harrison. 


• 


THE 

FOURTH-DIMENSIONAL 

REACHES  OF  THE 

EXPOSITION 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  1915 
By  CORA  LENORE  WILLIAMS,  M.  S. 

AUTHOR  OF 
"AS  IF"  and  ESSAYS  ON  "INVOLUTION" 


PAUL  ELDER  AND  COMPANY 
PUBLISHER  •  SAN  FRANCISCO 


Copyright,  1915 

By  PAUL  ELDER  AND  COMPANY 
SAN  FRANCISCO 


Srchi tectura 


GIFT 


TO  MY 
FATHER  AND  MOTHER 


E; 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Lines  on  "Fourth-Dimensional  Insight"  by  Ormeida 
Curtis  Harrison.  (Tissue  Facing  Frontispiece.} 

A  Fourteenth  Century  Legend vii 

Essay  on  the  Fourth-Dimensional   Reaches   of  the 
Exposition.    By  Cora  Lenore  Williams: 
General  Status  of  the  Fourth-Dimensional  Theory        i 
Fourth-Dimensional  Aspects  of  the   Panama-Pa- 
cific International  Exposition 9 

Bibliography:  Books  and  Poems  having  Fourth-Di- 
mensional Insight 1 8 

ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

An  Unborn  Space.  The  Court  of  Four  Seasons. 
From  an  etching  by  Gertrude  Partington  (Frontispiece'} 

A  Structure  Brave.  Palace  of  Fine  Arts.  From  an 
etching  by  Gertrude  Partington 4 

A  Building  Inside  Out.  The  Court  of  Ages.  From 
an  etching  by  Gertrude  Partington  ....  14 

A  Four-Dimensional  Cover  Design.  By  Julia  Man- 
chester Mackie.  (Cover.} 


[v 


A  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY 
LEGEND 


ffRIAR  BACON,  reading  one  day  of 
•*•  the  many  conquests  of  England, 
bethought  himself  how  he  might  keep  it 
hereafter  from  the  like  conquests  and  so 
make  himself  famous  to  all  posterity. 
This  (after  great  study)  he  found  could  be 
no  way  so  well  done  as  one;  which  was  to 
make  a  head  of  brass,  and  if  he  could 
make  this  head  to  speak  (and  hear  it  when 
it  spoke)  then  might  he  be  able  to  wall  all 
England  about  with  brass.  To  this  pur- 
pose he  got  one  Friar  Bungey  to  assist  him, 
who  was  a  great  scholar  and  magician 
(but  not  to  be  compared  to  Friar  Bacon); 
these  two  with  great  study  and  pains  so 
formed  a  head  of  brass  that  in  the  inward 
parts  thereof  there  was  all  things  like  as  in 
a  natural  mans  head.  This  being  done 
they  were  as  far  from  perfection  of  the  work 
as  they  were  before,  for  they  knew  not  how 
to  give  those  parts  that  they  had  made 
motion,  without  which  it  was  impossible 
that  it  should  speak.  Many  books  they 
read,  but  yet  could  not  find  out  any  hope 
of  what  they  sought,  that  at  the  last  they 
concluded  to  raise  a  spirit  and  to  know  of 
him  that  which  they  could  not  attain  by 
their  own  studies. 

[VII] 


A  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY  LEGEND 
The  spirit  straight  obeyed,  and  appeared 
unto  them,  asking  what  they  would.  He 
told  them  that  with  a  continual  fume  of  the 
six  hottest  simples  it  should  have  motion, 
and  in  one  month  space  speak:  the  time  of 
the  month  or  the  day  he  knew  not.  Also 
he  told  them  that  if  they  heard  it  not  before 
it  had  done  speaking,  all  their  labor  should 
be  lost. 

Then  went  these  two  learned  Friars  home 
again  and  prepared  the  simples  ready  and 
made  the  fume,  and  with  continual  watching 
attended  when  this  Brazen  Head  should 
speak.  Thus  watched  they  for  three  weeks 
without  any  rest,  so  that  they  were  so  weary 
and  sleepy  that  they  could  not  any  longer 
refrain  from  rest.  Then  called  Friar  Bacon 
his  man  Miles,  and  told  him  that  it  was  not 
unknown  to  him  what  pains  Friar  Bungey 
and  himself  had  taken  for  three  weeks  space 
only  to  make  and  to  hear  the  Brazen  Head 
speak,  which  if  they  did  not,  then  had  they 
lost  all  their  labor,  and  all  England  had  a 
great  loss  thereby.  Therefore  he  entreated 
Miles  that  he  would  watch  whilst  that  they 
slept  and  call  them  if  the  head  spake. 
'Fear  not  (good  master),  I  will  harken  and 
attend  upon  the  head  and  if  it  do  chance  to 
speak,  I  will  call  you;  therefore,  I  pray 
take  you  both  your  rest  and  let  me  alone 

for  watching  this  head.9 

*     *     *     * 

[  viii  ] 


A  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY  LEGEND 

At  last,  after  some  noise,  the  Head  spake 
these  two  words:  '  Time  is.  '  Miles,  hearing 
it  to  speak  no  more,  thought  his  master 
would  be  angry  if  he  waked  him  for  that, 
and  therefore  he  let  them  both  sleep  and 
began  to  mock  the  Head  in  this  manner: 
f  Thou  Brazen-faced  Head,  hath  my  master 
took  all  this  pains  about  thee  and  now  dost 
thou  requite  him  with  two  words,  "  Time 


After  half  an  hour  had  past,  the  Head 
did  speak  again  two  words  which  were 
these:  '  Time  was.  '  Miles  respected  these 
words  as  little  as  he  did  the  former  and 
would  not  wake  his  master,  but  still  scoffed 
at  the  Brazen  Head,  that  it  had  learned  no 
better  words,  and  have  had  such  a  tutor  as 
his  master;  *****  'Time  was!"  I 
knew  that,  Brazen-face,  without  your  telling. 
I  knew  Time  was  and  I  know  what  things 
there  was  when  Time  was,  and  if  you  speak 

no  wiser,  no  master  shall  be  waked  for  me! 
*     *     *     * 

*  *  *  *  The  Brazen  He  ad  spake  again  these 
words:  l  Time  is  past';  and  therewith  fell 
down  and  presently  followed  a  terrible  noise, 
with  strange  flashes  of  fire,  so  that  Miles 
was  half  dead  with  fear.  At  this  noise  the 
two  Friars  waked  and  wondered  to  see  the 
whole  room  so  full  of  smoke,  but  that  being 
vanished,  they  might  perceive  the  Brazen 


A  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY  LEGEND 

Head  broken  and  lying  on  the  ground.  At 
this  sight  they  grieved,  and  called  Miles  to 
know  how  this  came.  Miles,  half  dead 
with  fear,  said  that  it  fell  down  of  itself  and 
that  with  the  noise  and  fire  that  followed  he 
was  almost  frightened  out  of  his  wits. 
Friar  Bacon  asked  him  if  it  did  not  speak. 
'Yes*  quoth  Miles,  (it  spake,  but  to  no 
purpose.9 


[x 


GENERAL  STATUS  OF  THE 

FOURTH-DIMENSIONAL 

THEORY 


THE  human  mind  has  so  long  followed 
its  early  cow -paths  through  the 
wilderness  of  sense  that  great  hardihood 
is  required  even  to  suggest  that  there 
may  be  other  and  better  ways  of  travers- 
ing the  empirical  common.  So  it  is  that 
the  fear  of  being  proclaimed  a  Brazen- 
head  has  restrained  me  until  this  eleventh 
hour  from  telling  of  my  discoveries  con- 
cerning the  fourth-dimensional  reaches  of 
our  Exposition.  That  I  have  the  courage 
How  is  due  to  my  desire  to  help  in  its 
preservation ;  not  to  the  end  of  enclosing 
it  in  a  brass  wall,  but  to  lift  it  out  of  the 
realm  of  things  temporal  and  give  it 
permanent  meaning  for  our  thought  and 
aspiration.  Would  we  save  our  Exposi- 
tion from  the  ravages  of  Time  we  have  to 
exorcise  that  monster  with  the  enigmati- 
cal utterances  of  the  aforesaid  Brazen 
Head.  The  philosophers  are  telling  us 
that  Time  is  the  fourth  dimension  in  the 
process  of  evolving  for  our  consciousness. 
I  take  it  that  there  are  three  stages  in  this 
evolution ;  the  first,  that  of  immediate  ex- 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

perience,  is  subsumed  by  the  phrase  'Time 
is' ;  the  second  is  a  passing  from  the  con- 
crete to  the  abstract  through  the  fact 
that  Time  was';  and  the  glory  of  the  last 
is  visioned  only  when  we  can  say  Time 
is  past.' 

While  many  books  have  been  written 
descriptive  of  the  Exposition,  none  has 
succeeded  in  accounting  completely  for 
the  joy  we  have  in  yonder  miracle  of 
beauty.  And  this  through  no  fault  of 
the  writers.  When  all  has  been  said 
concerning  plan  and  execution  there  is 
still  a  subtle  something  not  spatialized 
for  consciousness.  Length,  breadth,  and 
height  do  not  suffice  to  set  forth  the  ways 
of  our  delight  in  it.  What  of  this  per- 
ceptual residue?  Obviously  to  give  it 
extension  we  shall  have  to  ascribe  to 
reality  other  dimensions  than  those  of 
our  present  sense-realm.  Some  disciple 
of  Bergson  interrupts:  'Ah,  this  whereof 
you  speak  is  a  spiritual  thing  and  as  such 
is  given  by  the  intuition.  Why,  then,  do 
you  seek  to  spatialize  it?'  And  the  lay- 
man out  of  his  mental  repugnance  to 
things  mathematical  echoes, '  Why  ? '  We 
have  to  answer  that  the  process  of  creative 
evolution  makes  imperative  the  trans- 
fixion by  the  intellect  of  these  so-called 
spiritual  perceptions.  Although  the  in- 
tuition transcends  the  intelligence  in  its 
[2] 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

grasp  of  beauty  and  truth,  we  may  attain 
to  the  higher  insight  it  has  to  offer  only 
if  the  things  of  the  spirit  become  known 
to  the  intellect — a  point  in  Bergson's 
philosophy  which  the  majority  of  his 
readers  overlook.  'We  have/  he  says,  'to 
engender  the  categories  of  our  thought; 
it  is  not  enough  that  we  determine  what 
these  are.'  Bergson  is  preeminently  the 
prophet  of  the  higher  space  concept.  We 
had  done  better  to  have  held  to  Kant, 
for  now  we  are  not  only  confronted  with 
the  fourth  dimension  as  a  thought-form, 
but  with  the  duty  as  well  of  furthering  its 
creation.  And  in  that  light  we  have  to 
regard  what  of  worth  and  meaning  the 
Exposition  has  for  us. 

Although  the  scientist  has  found  it 
useful  on  occasion  to  postulate  the  fourth 
dimension,  he  has  not  thought  necessary 
as  yet  to  put  it  in  the  category  of  reality; 
much  less  has  the  layman.  Consequently 
the  mathematician  holds  the  sole  title  to 
its  knowledge  unless  we  recognize  the 
claims  of  the  medium  to  a  fourth-dimen- 
sional insight. 

There  is  much,  however,  today  which 
points  to  our  coming  to  such  perception 
as  the  natural  result  of  our  evolution  and 
quite  apart  from  geometrical  abstractions 
or  occultism.  It  is  as  though  some  great 
tidal  wave  had  swept  over  space  and  we 
[3] 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

have,  quite  unbeknown  to  ourselves,  been 
lifted  by  it  to  new  heights.  And  when  we 
have  once  obtained  our  spiritual  balance 
we  shall  doubtless  find  that  our  space- 
world  has  taken  to  itself  another  direc- 
tion, inconceivable  as  that  now  seems. 

Space  is  more  than  room  wherein  to 
move  about;  it  is,  first  of  all,  the  room 
in  which  we  think,  and  upon  how  we  do 
so  depends  the  number  of  its  dimensions. 
If  the  attention  has  become  '  riveted  to 
the  object  of  its  practical  interest'  to  the 
extent  that  this  is  the  only  good  the 
creature  knows,  then  is  its  thought-form 
one-dimensional  even  though  its  bodily 
movements  are  three-spaced.  The  great 
Peacock  Moth  wings  a  sure  course  mate- 
ward  to  the  mystification  of  the  scientist ; 
the  dog  finds  the  direct  road  home — his 
master  cannot  tell  how;  Mary  Antin 
climbs  to  an  education  over  difficulties 
apparently  insurmountable ;  Rockefeller 
knows  his  goal  and  attains  it,  regardless 
of  other  moral  worths.  For  these  the 
way  is  certain.  They  can  suffer  no  deflec- 
tion since  there  are  no  relative  values, 
no  possible  choices.  Their  purpose  makes 
the  road  one-dimensional.  That  the  ma- 
jority of  persons  are  still  feeling  their  way 
over  the  surface  of  things  is  attested  by 
the  general  mental  ineptitude  for  the 
study  of  solid  geometry.  Depth  and 

[4] 


A  STRUCTURE  BRAVE 

PALACE  OF  FINE  ARTS 
From  an  etching  \>j  Gtrtrudt  Partingte 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

height  play  little  part  in  our  physical 
perception.  For  most  of  us  the  third 
dimension  is  practically  unknown  beyond 
the  reach  of  a  few  feet.  A  Beachey 
soaring  aloft — why  all  the  bravado  of 
curve  and  loop  ?  Sooner  or  later  he  will 
fall  to  his  death.  Ay,  verily!  but  his  is 
a  joyous  martyrdom  making  for  the 
evolution  of  consciousness.  Not  always 
shall  we  crawl  like  flies  the  surface  of 
our  globe ! 

While  a  man's  space-world  is  limited 
by  his  thought,  it  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  boundless  as  his  thought.  That  the 
world  evolves  with  our  consciousness,  is 
at  once  the  philosophy  of  'Creative 
Evolution'  and  of  the  higher  space 
theory.  Our  present  spatial  milieu  has 
settled  down  to  a  seemingly  three  dimen- 
sional finality  because  our  thought-form 
has  become  so  habitual  as  to  give  rise  to 
certain  geometric  axioms.  All  we  need 
in  order  to  come  to  a  fourth-dimensional 
consciousness,  said  Henri  Poincare,  'the 
greatest  of  moderns,'  is  a  new  table  of 
distribution;  that  is,  a  breaking  up  of  old 
associations  of  ideas  and  the  forming  of 
new  relations — a  simple  matter  were  it 
not  for  our  mental  inertia.  Lester  Ward 
speculates  that  life  remained  aquatic  for 
the  vast  periods  that  paleontology  would 
indicate;  Cambrian,  Silurian,  Devonian, 

[5] 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

Carboniferous — a  duration  greater  than 
all  subsequent  time — for  the  reason  that 
the  creature  had  not  progressed  beyond 
the  stage  when  it  could  move  otherwise 
than  in  a  straight  line  when  actuated  by 
desire  for  food  or  mate.  Life  was  not 
able  to  maintain  itself  on  land  until  it 
had  overcome  this  one-dimensional  limita- 
tion. A  venturesome  Pterodactyl  was  he 
who  first  essayed  to  make  his  way  among 
the  many  obstructions  to  be  found  ashore ! 
By  what  intuition  was  he  impelled  ? 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  observation 
that  the  growth  of  the  higher  perceptive 
faculty  is  strangely  concomitant  with 
adversity.  The  intuitive  person  is  a  per- 
son who  has  suffered.  When  conditions 
press  sufficiently  hard,  a  new  table  of 
distribution  may  be  the  only  means  for 
survival.  Thus  we  proceed  to  make  a 
virtue  of  necessity  and  so  come  to  the 
recognition  of  other  values  which  we 
denominate  spiritual  because  we  have  not 
as  yet  spatialized  them.  The  caterpillar 
has  to  mount  the  twig  to  find  the  tender 
green  that  is  his  food,  but  he  solaces 
himself  for  the  journey  by  thinking  him- 
self a  creature  of  the  light.  Mr.  Carpen- 
ter, in  an  interesting  study  of  what  he 
calls  Intermediate  Types,  shows  that  the 
seers  and  spiritually-minded  come  to  be 
such  because  they  found  themselves  differ- 

[6] 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

ing  in  some  wise  from  their  fellows,  and 
dwelling  on  that  difference  had  their 
minds  turned  inward.  Progress  in 
thought  and  imagination  naturally  fol- 
lowed, with  the  result  that  these  were 
lifted  above  the  majority  and  came 
thereby  to  larger  vision.  Failure  may 
well  be  the  measure  of  extension  in  a  new 
dimension. 

The  significance  of  the  much  fumbling 
and  groping  of  earth's  creatures  is  the 
desire  for  a  larger  outlook.  Man  has  to 
feel  his  way  out  of  a  three-fold  world 
even  as  the  worm  out  of  his  hole.  That 
we  are  hearing  much  of  the  principle  of 
relativity  is  perhaps  the  best  indication 
we  have  that  the  collective  human  con- 
sciousness is  about  to  enter  a  higher 
dimension.  So  long  as  man  knew  only 
an  absolute  good  was  his  world  a  defi- 
nitely determined  world.  Now  that  the 
question  of  relative  values  obtrudes  itself 
on  every  side  the  range  of  consciousness 
promises  to  be  infinite. 

Man's  interest  having  in  these  latter 
days  become  largely  centered  on  value- 
judgments  and  estimates  of  worth,  an 
exposition  affords  perhaps  the  most  gen- 
eral application  of  the  principle  of  rela- 
tivity, bringing  it  home  to  the  collective 
mind  in  an  intimately  human  way  as 
nothing  else  could.  With  nation  vying 

[7] 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

with  nation  and  individual  with  indi- 
vidual in  all  of  the  arts  and  crafts  of 
human  industry,  absolute  standards  must 
needs  vanish,  and  with  their  going  we 
may  be  able  to  set  up  such  a  distribution 
of  values  as  will  give  new  direction  to  our 
efforts.  However  that  may  be,  the  indus- 
trial competition  to  which,  in  the  last 
analysis,  the  Exposition  owes  its  incep- 
tion, is  pushing  many  aside  from  the 
beaten  highways  into  hitherto  unexplored 
regions  of  thought  and  endeavor,  and 
who  is  to  say  that  we  may  not  in  conse- 
quence find  a  direction  quite  at  right 
angles  to  all  of  our  wonted  ways  of 
thinking.  Certainly  there  could  be  no 
more  fitting  occasion  for  the  launching 
of  a  new  thought-form  than  a  great  inter- 
national exposition. 


[8] 


THE  FOURTH  -  DIMENSIONAL 
ASPECTS  of  the  PANAMA-PACIFIC 
INTERNATIONAL  EXPOSITION 


And  I  know  not  if,  save  in  this,  such  gift  be  allowed 

to  man, 
That  out  of  three  sounds  he  frame,  not  a  fourth 

sound,  but  a  star. 
Consider  it  well:  each  tone  of  our  scale  in  itself  is 

naught: 
It  is  everywhere  in  the  world  —  loud,  soft,  and 

all  is  said: 
Give  it  to  me  to  use!     I  mix  it  with  two  in  my 

thought: 

And  there!     Ye  have  heard  and  seen:  consider 
and  bow  the  head! 

— Browning. 


THE  Panama-Pacific  International  Ex- 
position is  best  seen  in  its  fourth- 
dimensional  aspect  when  approached 
through  the  Gateway  of  Memory.  This 
is  what  one  might  expect,  for  that 
entrance  alone  has  the  requisite  geomet- 
rical structure.  You  will  recall  having 
heard,  I  am  sure,  how  in  the  fourth 
dimension  a  person  may  go  in  and  out 
of  a  locked  room  at  his  pleasure  with 
bolts  and  bars  untouched.  Broad  and 
open  as  is  this  Gate  of  Memory,  when  you 
pass  its  portals  the  wall  closes  behind 
you;  there  is  no  visible  opening  to  mark 

[9] 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

the  spot  of  your  entry.  A  feeling  of 
detachment  comes  over  you.  This  is 
augmented  by  the  burst  of  light  and  color 
that  flashes  across  the  field  of  your  vision, 
and  for  the  first  time  you  understand  the 
purport  of  those '  banners  yellow,  glorious, 
golden'  which  'do  float  and  flow.'  They 
seem  to  bear  you  on  breezes  of  their  own 
creating  to  the  freedom  of  outer  spaces. 
What  you  had  taken  for  the  flauntings 
of  festivity  are  become  the  heralds  of 
hyperspace. 

As  you  wend  your  way  down  the 
Avenue  of  Time  you  feel  an  inexpressive 
lightness,  a  sensation  of  being  lifted  out 
of  yourself.  The  moment  seems  unique. 
Things  are  unrelated.  There  is  no  con- 
cern of  proportion.  The  place  is  one  of 
immediacy.  You  wander  from  the  ephem- 
eral to  the  ephemeral.  'Time  is,'  you 
say,  in  childish  glee.  And  you  hasten  to 
assemble  images  as  many  and  as  disparate 
as  possible,  believing  that  you  are  drink- 
ing life  at  its  fountain  head.  The  outer 
world  presents  itself  to  your  consciousness 
in  the  form  of  facts  in  juxtaposition. 
You  read  guide-books  and  rejoice  in 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  Gradually 
through  the  perception  of  the  same 
phantasmagoria  comes  an  at-oneness  with 
your  fellows.  You  are  caught  up  in  the 
swirl  of  a  larger  self. 
[10] 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

Soon  you  weary  of  the  heterogeneous. 
The  Zone  of  Consciousness  stands  revealed 
in  all  its  grotesqueness.  'Time  is/  you 
cry,  but  to  give  thought  its  impulse,  and 
you  hasten  on  if  perchance  you  may 
discover  the  direction  of  the  life-principle. 
What  you  had  taken  for  reality  is  but  its 
cross-section  —  so  does  this  empirical 
realm  stand  to  the  higher  world  of  your 
spirit,  even  as  a  plane  to  a  solid. 

Now  you  turn  your  attention  from 
things  to  relations  in  the  hope  of  getting 
at  truth  in  the  large.  A  passage  in  Plato 
comes  vividly  to  your  mind.  '  For  a  man 
must  have  intelligence  of  universals,  and 
be  able  to  proceed  from  the  many  par- 
ticulars of  sense  to  one  conception  of 
reason; — this  is  the  recollection  of  those 
things  which  our  soul  once  saw  while 
following  God,  when,  regardless  of  that 
which  we  now  call  being,  she  raised  her 
head  up  towards  the  true  beingl' 

Henceforth  the  multiplicity  that  you 
seek  is  one  of  organization  and  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  number.  'Time  was/ 
you  proclaim,  that  consciousness  might 
sift  out  the  irrelevant.  As  you  pass  from 
collection  to  collection  individual  fact 
becomes  prolonged  into  general  law  and 
science  dominates  the  field  of  thought. 
A  thousand  years  are  as  a  day  when 
subsumed  by  its  laws.  You  look  at  the 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

objects  of  man's  creating  with  new  eyes. 
The  displays  are  no  longer  contests  of 
laborious  industry  but  of  vision  and  faith. 
You  see  that  truth  has  made  itself  mani- 
fest through  the  long  repetition  of  the 
same  fundamental  theme.  That  which  is 
unique  and  personal  you  are  surprised  to 
find  of  less  value  than  the  habit  perfected 
by  patient  practice.  The  routine  and 
monotony  of  daily  toil  become  glorified 
in  the  light  that  now  falls  athwart  your 
vision.  You  learn  to  substitute  for  your 
personal  feeling  the  common  impersonal 
element  felt  by  the  many.  Your  concern 
is  not  as  formerly  to  recollect,  but  to 
symbolize.  To  this  end  you  study  frieze 
and  statuary  and  frequent  lectures.  Your 
sense  of  social  solidarity  grows  through 
mutual  comprehension  of  the  same  truths. 
And  again  that  'vexing,  forward  reach- 
ing sense  of  some  more  noble  permanence' 
urges  you  on.  'Time  was,'  you  joyously 
affirm  for  man  to  come  to  the  knowledge 
of  an  eternal  self.  But  that,  your  tradi- 
tion and  education  have  led  you  to 
believe,  is  still  yonder,  worlds  away. 
And  you  image  the  soul  in  its  quest 
passing  from  life  to  life  as  you  are  now 
passing  from  building  to  building,  from 
hall  to  hall.  But  glad  the  thought- 
there  will  be  courts  wherein  you  may 
perhaps  glimpse  the  plan  of  the  whole 
[121 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

and  so  gather  strength  and  purpose  for 
another  housing.  All  at  once  you  know 
that  death  has  no  fear  for  you  and  you 
feel  toward  your  present  life  as  you  do 
toward  these  Palaces  of  the  Mundane — 
the  sooner  compassed  the  better. 

You  pass  from  court  to  edifice  and  from 
edifice  to  court,  marvelling  at  the  sym- 
metry of  plan  and  structure.  Unity, 
balance,  and  harmony  become  manifest 
as  spatial  properties  —  you  had  been 
taught  to  regard  them  as  principles  of  art. 
You  wonder  if  art  itself  may  not  be  merely 
a  matter  of  right  placing — the  adjustment 
of  a  thing  to  its  environment.  You  are 
certain  that  this  is  so  as  each  coign  and 
niche  offers  you  its  particular  insight. 
Strange  vagaries  float  through  your  mind 
— one's  duty  to  the  inanimate  things  of 
one's  possession;  the  house  too  large  for 
the  personality  of  the  owner;  the  right 
setting  for  certain  idiosyncracies ;  charac- 
ter building  as  a  constructive  process ;  the 
ideal  as  the  limit  of  an  infinite  series — 
each  pointing  the  way,  as  you  think,  to 
a  different  vista  of  human  outlook.  What 
then  your  glad  surprise  to  find  these 
converging  toward  one  ideal  synthesis. 
In  anticipation  of  the  splendor  you  hasten 
on  till  earth  shall  have  attained  to  heaven. 
There  it  stands — 'a  structure  brave/  the 
Palace  of  Art,  the  Temple  of  the  Soul — 
[13] 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

and  you  know  you  were  made  to  be  per- 
fect too. 

Now  that  you  apprehend  the  plan  of 
the  whole,  symmetry  takes  on  a  vital 
significance  for  your  thought.  You  try 
to  recall  what  you  learned  of  it  in  geom- 
etry. There  was  a  folding  over,  you 
remember,  and  a  fitting  together  - 
'congruence'  you  believe  it  was  called. 
But  that  could  have  no  meaning  for 
solids.  Stop!  a  folding  over?  Why,  that 
implies  another  dimension!  The  two 
halves  of  a  leaf  can  be  brought  together 
only  as  one  or  the  other  is  lifted  out  of 
the  plane  of  the  leaf  into  a  third  dimen- 
sion. So  to  bring  two  buildings  into 
superposition  when  they  are  alike  except 
for  a  reverse  order  of  parts,  would  necessi- 
tate a  fourth  dimension  and  a  turning 
inside  out.  Quick  as  the  thought,  the 
court  you  are  in  is  that — a  building 
inside  out! 

Ah!  you  know  now  wherefor  that 
wonderful  uplifting  sensation  that  comes 
whenever  you  enter  one  of  these  beautiful 
inclosures.  You  have  passed  into  the 
fourth  dimension  of  spatial  realization. 
'Time  is  past/  you  shout  aloud,  and 
laugh  to  find  yourself  on  the  inside  of 
externality.  Cubism  in  architecture ! 
Futurism,  in  very  truth! 

You  visit   again  the  galleries  of  the 

[14] 


A  BUILDING  INSIDE  OUT 

THE  COURT  OF  AGES 
Frtm  an  etching  \>j  Gertrude  ¥  Arlington 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

New  Art,  not  to  scoff,  but  in  earnest 
desire  for  enlightenment  as  to  this  thing 
which  is  so  near  to  consciousness  and  yet 
so  far.  You  find  yourself  exclaiming: 

'Ah,  there  is  something  here 
Unfathomed  by  the  cynic's  sneer!' 

As  you  gaze  at  the  portrayal  so  strangely 
weird  in  form  and  color  you  ask  yourself 
where  have  I  felt  that,  seen  this,  before? 
Immediately  you  are  transported  in 
memory  to  the  midst  of  a  crowded  street. 
In  the  mad  bustle  and  noise  you  are 
conscious  only  of  mechanical  power;  of 
speed — always  of  speed.  Your  voice  far 
away— 'The  child,  oh,  the  child!'  A 
swooning  sensation.  Men's  faces  as  tri- 
angles and  horses  with  countless  legs. 
The  chaos  of  primal  forces  about  you- 
then darkness. 

As  the  past  fuses  with  the  present  you 
awaken  to  a  larger  privilege  of  life  than 
man  now  knows.  You  feel  yourself  en- 
compassed by  truth,  vital  and  strong. 
This  art,  erstwhile  so  baffling,  stands 
revealed  as  the  struggle  of  a  superhuman 
entity  for  self-expression.  The  tendency 
toward  God  has  to  begin  anew  with  each 
round  of  the  life-spiral — that  eternal 
circle  which  life  pursues. 

Now  you  find  yourself  in  the  Court  of 
the   Universe.     Bands   of  many-colored 
[15] 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

light,  the  white  radiance  of  eternity, 
stream  athwart  the  sky.  The  illumina- 
tion is  of  the  wonder  that  now  is.  How 
marvelously  strange  the  sight  of  the 
world-consciousness  passing  over  into  a 
higher  thought-form!  Each  individual 
element  suffering  reversal  to  take  its 

? roper  place  in  the  new  world-order! 
ou  see  positive  becoming  negative, 
negative  becoming  positive,  and  Evolu- 
tion giving  place  to  Involution — a  process 
as  yet  uncomprehended  by  our  narrow 
thought.  And  the  secret  of  the  world- 
struggle  across  the  sea  you  know;  men 
passing  their  nature's  bound;  new  hopes 
and  loyalties  supplanting  old  ties  and 
joys;  the  established  creeds  of  right  and 
wrong  as  they  vanish  in  this  unmeasurable 
thirst  for  an  unknown  good.  All  these 
things  you  know  to  be  the  travail  of  the 
world  as  it  gives  birth  to  some  higher 
entity  than  individual  man. 

'Time  is  past/  and  as  you  speak  a 
dove  settles  to  rest  upon  a  pediment. 
Therewith  you  are  carried  away  in  the 
spirit  to  a  great  and  high  mountain  and 
you  behold  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth ;  for  the  first  heaven  and  the  first 
earth  are  passed  away.  You  see  the  holy 
city  coming  down  out  of  heaven — her  light 
is  like  unto  a  stone  most  precious,  as  it 
were  a  jasper  stone,  clear  as  crystal,  and 

[16] 


FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  REACHES 

the  walls  thereof  are  adorned  with  all 
manner  of  precious  stones — and  they 
brought  the  glory  and  the  honor  of  the 
nations  into  it. 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

(After  Bergsori) 

Out  of  a  sense  of  immediacy 

Comes  an  intuition  of  things  forming. 

Pressed  up  by  the  vital  urge, 

Mind  meets  matter  and  matter  mind 

In  mutual  understanding. 

That  which  apprehends,  since  by  the  object  shaped, 

A  fitting  instrument  is  for  what  itself  has  wrought. 

From  the  same  stuff, 

Cut  by  an  identical  process, 

Thing  and  intellect  to  congruence  come, 

In  a  space-world  forever  unfolding. 

No  pre established  harmony  this 

Of  inner  to  outer  realm  corresponding, 

Nor  spirit  nor  form  by  the  other  determined. 

Stranger  far  the  genesis  whereof  I  speak: 

From  the  universal  flux, 

In  a  moment  that  is  ever  unique, 

Life  to  new  consciousness  springs; 

Creator  and  created  together  evolve, 

In  a  time-stream  continually  changing. 


[17] 


MY  BIBLIOGRAPHY  ^FOURTH- 
DIMENSIONAL  INSIGHT 

WHILE  to  books  I  owe  much,  I  owe  still  more  to  the 
beautiful  people  by  whom  I  have  been,  like  Marcus 
Aurelius,  all  my  life  surrounded,  and  particularly  to  my  par- 
ents of  large  vision. 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION:    Bergson. 

An  intuition  so  great  that  if  spatialized  it  would  lead  to 
a  world  of  infinite  dimensions. 

THE  ETHICAL  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BERGSON'S  PHI- 
LOSOPHY:    Una  Bernard  Salt. 
THE  NEW  INFINITE  AND  THE  OLD  THEOLOGY: 

C.  J.  Keyser. 

THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION:     C.  H.  Hinton. 
FIRST  AND  LAST  THINGS:    H.  G.  Wells. 
THE  ART  OF  CREATION  :     Edward  Carpenter. 
SOME     NEGLECTED     FACTORS     OF     EVOLUTION: 

Bernard. 

A  scientific  presentation  of  Involution,  a  book  than  which 
none  other  has  more  light  to  throw  on  present  world 
problems. 

PRIMER  OF  HIGHER  SPACE:     Claude  Bragdon. 
PROJECTIVE  ORNAMENT:     Claude  Bragdon. 
PARACELSUS:     Browning. 
ABT  VOGLER:    Browning. 
COMMEMORATION  ODE:    Lowell. 
THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATIONS. 


[18] 


HERE  ENDS  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL 
REACHES  OF  THE  PANAMA-PACIFIC  INTER- 
NATIONAL EXPOSITION,"  WRITTEN  BY 
CORA  LENORE  WILLIAMS,  M.S.,  WITH 
LINES  ON  FOURTH-DIMENSIONAL  INSIGHT 
BY  ORMEIDA  CURTIS  HARRISON;  AND  THE 
ILLUSTRATIONS  ARE  FROM  ETCHINGS  DONE 
BY  GERTRUDE  PARTINGTON,  AND  THE 
FOURTH  DIMENSIONAL  COVER  DESIGN  BY 
JULIA  MANCHESTER  MACKIE.  PUBLISHED 
BY  PAUL  ELDER  &  COMPANY,  AND  PRINTED 
UNDER  THE  TYPOGRAPHICAL  DIRECTION 
OF  H.  A.  FUNKE  AT  THEIR  TOMOYE  PRESS, 
IN  SAN  FRANCISCO,  DURING  THE  MONTH 
OF  NOVEMBER,  NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND 
FIFTEEN 


D 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

ENVIRONMENTAL  DESIGN  I 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


JUN 

DUE  END  EEC 


LD  21-40m-5,'65 
(F4308slO)476 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


